Contactless devices are widely used for authentication. Individuals have a need for a unique contactless device comprising as much authentication information as possible for executing secure electronic transactions, logins on mobile device etc. . . . , without having to remember all of them.
The applicant has thus developed personal contactless devices allowing an individual to have in the same device a lot of authentication information, said device being wearable by individuals and having a body-coupling communication interface. The contactless device can be on a bracelet, an ankle, a belt, a garment, in a pocket etc. . . . .
The authentication is easy to perform for the user. Indeed, when a user, wearing said contactless device, touches (or is close enough) to a device to which the user has to be authenticated, the authentication is performed by the contactless device without any further action than the touching action to be performed by the user wearing the contactless device.
For example, when a user wearing said kind of contactless devices touches the doorknob of a door, said doorknob being able to communicate with the contactless device, it opens said door.
The contactless device communicates through the skin of the user with the device to which the user wants to authenticate. This kind of communication is named body-coupling communication (BCC). The BCC is based on the principle that modulated electric field may carry a signal on a user body according to a capacitive coupling mode, thus the human body, and more particularly the skin, is used as a wire between the contactless device and a device with which it communicates with to ensure authentication of the user.
Once the user has authenticated himself to a second device through the BCC link, a wireless communication is established between the contactless device and the second device to exchange authentication information in a secure way. The wireless communication can use various wireless protocols such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, zigbee etc. . . . .
One particularity of the contactless device developed by the applicant is an interface adapted to establish BCC link. This kind of contactless device aims to perform authentication with mobile devices. However, mobile devices are not BCC compliant and it is not possible to ask constructors of all kind of mobile devices to add a BCC interface to their mobile devices.
The meaning of mobile device is to be understood as any device allowing people to access data and information from wherever they are. These terms include mobile phone and portable devices, such as handset, tablets, PDAs, laptop computers, mobile computers, mobile phone, smartphone, etc. . . . .